Rs2,800 crore for LIC of India policyholders

Rs2,800 crore for LIC of India policyholders
Thanks to new Direct Tax Code

Life Insurance Corporation Chairman TS Vijayan today said the life insurance major will pass on the tax benefits from the proposed Direct Tax Code to the new policyholders. “We will pass on the DTC benefits to the policyholders,” Vijayan told an insurance summit organised by industry body Assocham here today. The Direct Taxes Code (DTC) Bill, which tables in the Lok Sabha on Monday, seeks to provide income tax exemption on investment of up to Rs 1 lakh in approved funds. Besides, it also proposes to provide exemption of up to Rs 50,000 on investments made in insurance, including health cover, and tuition fee. However, this proposed higher exemption is only Rs 30,000 more than what is existing now. The DTC proposes to streamline the archaic Income Tax Act and would do away with most of the exemptions as well as cesses and surcharges, while hiking the overall tax slabs. Earlier in the day, addressing the seminar he called upon the industry to invest heavily in training their agents if it wants to grow more profitably. Pointing out that the biggest challenge to faster growth is non-professional or poorly/un-trained agents, Vijayan said it’s high time the industry professionalised its distribution channels by training its agents. “We have to migrate to fully-trained professional agents.Unless we as an industry invest in training our agents and making them qualified trained professionals, we cannot continue to growth. If we don’t invest in this, at least we should entrust this job to some professional institutes which can do this for us,” Vijayan said.